


That would be enough

by PlanetaryMusical



Category: The Orville (TV)
Genre: Brooding, F/M, Hurt, Past Relationship(s), Regret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28227948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlanetaryMusical/pseuds/PlanetaryMusical
Summary: After Kelly made it clear that there is no turning back, Ed asks himself if there had been a moment when he could've saved their past.Takes place between the first two seasons.Inspired by"Best of wives and best of women" from the musical Hamilton
Relationships: Kelly Grayson/Ed Mercer
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	That would be enough

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SaturnCapri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaturnCapri/gifts).



> Another gift for my friend SaturnCapri :)
> 
> Wasn't that bad that I found the time to rewatch the musical yesterday. It somehow left a little mark on me:)
> 
> PM
> 
> //different from some details mentioned in the show//

Alexander, come back to sleep

I have an early meeting out of town

It's still dark outside

I know, I just need to write something down

Why do you write like you're running out of time? 

(shh)

Come back to bed, that would be enough

I'll be back before you know I'm gone

Come back to sleep

This meeting's at dawn

Well, I'm going back to sleep

Hey  
Best of wives and best of women

  
_Hamilton_

Ed shut down the work screen and leaned back in his office chair, wiping his eyes. Ten minor damage reports, the weekly update file and one staff member recommendation he'd just finished writing and successfully sent to Union Central. Done for today. At least the paper work.

Ed looked at the time. Another one and a half hour until he had to be back on the bridge. As long as there wasn't a krill ship approaching or any weird space anomalies would pop up out of nowhere and require his immediate intervention, of course. But speaking of the last few days, the chance of any special events seemed to be very low.  
Not that Ed wished to put his ship and crew in any danger, not at all. But it had been utterly silent for more than a week now.   
Ten days since they've ended their from the admiralty disputed mission to the multiphasic planet. Ten days since Kelly had made it clear to him, once and for all, that there was no second chance for them as a couple. No way back. And now this damn silence and the feeling of having nothing important to do didn't exactly help him deal with it.

Well, so it was one and a half hour until he had to face her again. One and a half hour of trying to distract himself as best as possible.  
Ed got up to synthesise another cup of coffee. His fifth today? Sixth? He had given up on counting them. On his way back to his desk his sight caught on the bookshelf behind him.  
Printed books being widely uncommon, Ed had always been special with his passion for them. He just loved the smell of the old paper, the sound of a page turning, the ability to somehow have a physical hold of the story that was written inside. He did not own many, due to their rare availability, but the few he had he held dear since he could remember.   
Especially the one his father had given him for his graduation:  
Jules Vernes' "Journey to the Center of the Earth".   
He'd read it a million times in his life already, yet it had never failed to amaze him. Maybe it was exactly what he needed. A small escape from the here and now. 

He took the book from the shelf and got down the couch on the opposite wall. He smiled as his fingers touched the worn out cover, unable to resist flipping the edges of the pages quickly.  
A piece of paper fell down to the floor. He picked it up. It was a photograph.

Him and Kelly at their wedding dance. In the spotlight. Brow to brow. Eyes closed. Smiling.

Ed sucked in a sharp breath. What did this photo do in that damn book? Had he used it as a bookmark the last time he'd read it? Was his last reading that long ago?

Despite the growing thickness he sensed in the back of his throat he couldn't turn his eyes from the picture in his hands.  
How happy they looked. So calm. So deeply in love. Like they had no idea what would come for them, for their marriage. That it just wouldn't last.  
That they would hurt each other.

Ed looked at Kelly's face. She'd been so incredibly beautiful that day with her hair in soft curls, wearing the pearls of her grandmother, her dress with a simple blue ribbon round her waist. Ed wouldn't even have to look at that picture to remember every single detail of her on that day. He'd never forget that moment she'd entered the room to just take his breath away.

He exhaled deeply, his thumb stroking above her face on the photo.   
That smile.  
He had made it disappear.

  
He put the picture back into the book and placed it on the coffee table. So much for a little distraction. But it was too late. His mind was back on its inward mission.

Ed closed his eyes as he leaned his head against the wall. All he could see was her. Her face.   
Her face in that picture. That genuine, calm smile around her lips. Slowly fading, fading into the same cold numbness that's been written on her face that one day when he'd told her, that he would not come home yet. Once again.

**~~~July 2418~~~**

"Kel, listen, this is a one in a million chance here for me, and I -"

  
"Six more weeks, Ed! You were supposed to be here, tonight ! After four and a half months out there! You were supposed to be here until at least November! What the hell should I say now?"

  
"Kel, as I said, if I go now on this mission I could stay home at UC until spring! Damnit, I could pass half of the exams already on that mission, I could save a hell of a time! Time, Kelly! Time for us, isn't that what you always want?"

  
"Oh, really, Ed, you actually care what I want, suddenly? That's hilarious!"

  
"Don't be like that again, Kel, just don't. You... I... Forget it."

  
"Oh, yeah, forget it. That's so typically you. You're running out of arguments and I should just forget it, huh?"

  
"Kel, it just makes no sense here, I told you what's in here for me and you-"

  
"Exactly! What's in here for You ! That's all you care about! 'Oh Kel, _I_ have to go on that mission, because it's boosting _my_ career, it's saving _my_ time that _I_ get to pass _my_ exams quicker that _I_ can be captain sooner! Oh, well, and that's nice for you too, isn't it?' Fuck you, Ed! "

"Fuck you, oh, wow, Kel, that's - are you fucking serious? "

"Yes, I am! Because, newsflash, it's not all about _you_ here! I have a job, too, I study and work and pass my exams and do you ever really ask what is new, lately? What if I have some new development too, huh? Something that's going on here, at UC, in my life, about... My career... Something that I..."

Kelly slowed down from the rage in her speech that had built up within their screen conversation. She took a deep breath, blinking back the tears that appeared in the corners of her eyes, part of her hoping that he wouldn't recognise them. She hated crying in front of him on screen. Seeing that he couldn't deal with it. Knowing that he couldn't touch her if he tried. It made it hurt even more. This already sucked enough.

"I wanted to talk to you tonight."

  
"About what? Tell me!"

  
"Oh no, I wanted you _here_. I need you, here. I fucking hate this screen, you know that? That's not our life! Our life is here, together!"   
Her voice was getting louder again.

  
"Kel, please..."

Ed sighed into the desperate silence that spread between them two for minutes while his thoughts were running upside down.  
He fucking wanted to make it right. That's why he took that last minute offer to join the mission the next morning after one officer had declined.   
He wanted to compress the time away from her to pass everything in half the time and be with her then, for good. Sure, having his own ship was still his goal but soon he would have reached everything he needed for it, and then they would make new plans, join a crew together, be the best team in the fleet like they always felt they could be. Why couldn't he just make it clear to her? Why couldn't she just understand? And why did she think that he didn't care? That he didn't care about her post at UC? About her studies, her exams, her work? She had decided to give it all a little more time, without being lazy or dumb or unambitious, she just wanted to take it slow, and he'd been fine with it. But he wanted it different. And he just wished that she could accept his decisions like he accepted hers. In the end, he just wanted to make her proud.

"I'm sorry, Kel."  
A bitter taste was on his lips as he spoke.   
"It's six weeks... But then I am there. Until March. And then we talk, about everything."  
If it was urgent or something bad, she'd tell him now. Right? 

  
"Yeah..."  
Kelly inhaled sharply. As if to show, that it was all said for her. As if she knew, that it was a waste of time to fight any longer, as if to say, that she was sick of fighting. He'd made his priorities clear to her, he'd stated what he was going to do. He'd go on that mission instead of coming home.

"Save journey. Call when you're there, will you?"

"Sure."  
Ed gave her a smile he hoped that could reach her.  
"I love you, Kel. You're the best that happened to me."  
He hadn't said that in a while. But it was the truth. He meant it. 

  
"I love you, too."

  
He looked at her, trying to recognise a smile on her face, at least a little one, until the screen shut down in front of him.

He returned home in early September. With three exams less to finish and a hell of a lot to tell her. It was around midday, as he found her in their bed with Darulio.

  
**~~~~~**

"Grayson to Mercer, we miss you on the bridge."

Ed winced deeply as he heard the voice from his conn. He saw the time. Fifteen minutes late.   
He felt a little dizzy as he sat up on the couch before he responded.

"Mercer here... I'm sorry, I'm on my way."

  
"Is everything alright, Ed?"

  
"Yes, sorry... I just took a little nap... I'm right there. Mercer out."

He barely noticed that he'd lied to her. What should he have said?   
I had a flashback of my last chance to make it right? The last chance that I just fucked up?

Ed walked to the synthesiser, deciding for a glass of water this time. He downed in one go. Panting, he braced his arm against the wall. He needed another minute. 

The pictures in his head still so clear, as if it all had just happened, he now was sure, more than ever before, about the thing she wanted to tell him back then...  
She'd wanted to talk to him, in person, that she couldn't do this any more. That she was unhappy, that she was hurt, that she was done. And that they couldn't go on if nothing changed.   
And all that, she just couldn't have told him on screen. She had wanted to have him there. In a fair talk. Because she'd thought he'd deserved that, despite it all. And she would've deserved it, too.   
And he maybe would've had a chance to make it right. To apologise. To take her in his arms and beg her to forgive him for every time he'd made her cry, for every time he'd been more selfish than he thought he'd be, for every time he'd hurt her. Maybe he could've saved their marriage. If he only had come back home that one last right time.

Ed took a deep breath before he stepped out into the hallway.

"Mercer to Grayson. On my way."

If he only had come home that night. Maybe it would've been enough. 

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, first of all, this was inspired by the lyrics of Hamilton, I didn't intend to make comparisons or find parallels here. Looking back at this, there might be some (as it was the last conversation of Eliza and Hamilton in the musical before he got shot in the duel with Burr // maybe last chance for Ed to make it right), but as I said, it wasn't my intention. The lyrics just made me think of Ed and Kelly, about how she wanted him to be home and with her and how he often put his career first and neglected her in their marriage until it was too late. 
> 
> Second, as the Orville (at least what we see in the show) doesn't give many background information about how their careers developed, I had to make my own explanation when it comes to Kelly. She says, Ed was never there and always working but hey, she wouldn't be first officer and the person she is now if she only had sat at home doing nothing but waiting for her husband to return. So I imagine her working at Union Central, having her own studies and missions and exams but not in such a rush and as intense as Ed is doing. She seems like a character who likes to give her private life and friends and family enough room in her life, she wants to have a balance. So I thought she might be working and having her career but in a way where she can include everything that she loves. It's not about being lazy or stupid, it's just about finding a balance. And she wished for Ed to do the same. I hope that makes sense. Some information I got from the wikia, some are only my interpretation and own ideas.  
> Plus, it differs a little here from what is mentioned in "Tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow". Guilty, I just have to admit that I don't watch that episode very often (because it's so emotional for me), so I simply didn't remember the details... Well, I hope it's still ok what I made out of it. 
> 
> I also didn't want to justify Ed's workaholic attitude. I just wanted to give an insight of what he felt and thought in his position. His last sentence about how happy he is to have her, he really meant it. I see Ed as a loving person who appreciates others but is facing self doubts over and over again. His drive to boost his career is partly for their couple future plans but also a way to prove to himself that he can make it, that he is not stupid. The show gives a hint of Ed being bullied as a kid, I saw that as a reason for him to have these self doubts and high expectations of himself. All this I see as aspects of his behaviour in their past. 
> 
> Summed up, I wanted to give an insight of both of them, though focusing more on Ed, as it is his memory. I didn't want to justify or condemn any of their behaviours. 
> 
> I hope you get what I mean :)


End file.
